


The Hokey Pokey Is Not Sophisticated

by missmariie



Series: Retail Detail [3]
Category: Castle
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Retail, First Dates, Humor, M/M, hints of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-26
Updated: 2015-07-26
Packaged: 2018-04-11 07:39:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4426919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmariie/pseuds/missmariie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Does basketball and two for one icecreams count as a date?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> None of the retail situations described below have ever been experienced by the author. 
> 
> Much.
> 
> Okay, that's a barefaced lie.

Kevin used a ruler to line up the hand creams on the counter for what was genuinely the eighth time that day. Rick was keeping score on a heart shaped post it he’d stuck into their sales figures booklet. 

“How have you not given up on the ruler yet?” Rick asked him around a mouthful of sour straps. 

Kevin just tssked at him, carefully placing down the next tube. 

“Even I’m getting sick of this,” Rick continued, shoving another strip into his mouth, “and the amount of angst it’s giving you should be keeping me entertained all day.”

Kevin slipped the last tube into place and began to pull the ruler away, slowly tugging from the centre so that neither side would swing out and hit the arrangement. 

“ _There_.” he said, standing back triumphantly. 

Rick drew another line on his tally. 

“I give it ten minutes, tops.” he told Kevin conversationally. 

“We close in five.”

Rick shrugged. 

Kevin knew he was probably right. 

 

The trouble wasn’t that the little tubes where the most top heavy item they’d ever had on the counter, although that wasn’t helping. It was that, according to orders from above, they absolutely _had_ to be arranged into a long neat row like a perfect line of dominoes. The problem with this plan had apparently not occurred to the people at the top. Of course, _they_ didn’t have to restack the entire row every time someone put their purse on the counter. 

“It’s a shame,” Kevin told Rick glumly, highlighting a string of words he hadn’t even read in their newsletter and stealing a sour strap, “I honestly thought those stupid wooden birds they tried to make us flog with every sale last Christmas would be dumbest thing they’d ever do.” 

“Who’d ever do?” asked a familiar voice. 

Kevin looked up from his booklet to see a sweaty Javier stride into the store, still dressed in his basketball coaching getup. 

Any day could have a silver lining. 

“Head office.” Rick replied cheerfully. 

Javier winced sympathetically. 

“Our lot can’t keep track of time.” 

“Yeah?” Kevin asked, giving in to the grin that wanted to break across his face. 

“Our system ran five minutes behind for a year.” 

“Maybe it’s some kind of lag problem?” Rick mused. 

Javier shook his head.

“Now we’re five minutes ahead.” 

“Oh, it’s definitely a conspiracy then.” Rick told him cheerfully. 

Javier snorted. 

 

Rick wandered off to grab the last of the rehang form the fitting rooms and Javier settled himself against the side of the counter. 

“Yo. You free after work?” he asked Kevin, wriggling his eyebrows. 

‘Even if I wasn’t, I am now!’ Kevin thought. Javier was a permanent fixture in his lunch breaks these days, but they’d never hung out outside of work hours. 

“Uh huh.” he replied, impressed by how calm he sounded, “Have you got anything in mind?” 

“Icecream, and basketball.” Javier said with a shrug. “The court’s open. We can go shoot some hoops.” 

Kevin extracted a Gelatissimo’s two for one voucher from under the counter and waved it at Javier triumphantly. 

“Do you think they’ll have hokey pokey?” he asked.

“Bro, that’s not even a real flavour.” Javier complained. 

Kevin grinned at him, rubbing his stomach.

“It’s _amazing_.” 

Javier shook his head at Kevin and peered over the counter at the mess on the other side.

“What’s this?” he asked, picking up a notice.

“Oh, that’s the list of jobs Rick isn’t allowed to do anymore.”

Javier snorted at the paper, and ran his fingers over the most recent entry – pack rubbish trolleys. Kevin’s belly gave a little flop as their eyes met, and he saw something soft in Javier’s expression. Javier started and put the paper gently back on the desk. 

“He can’t assemble mannequins?” 

“Ha! Yeah, poor Yorrik.” Kevin laughed, shaking his head at the memory.

“How’s he not been fired yet?” Javier wondered aloud. 

“My mum is best friends with the CEO’s personal assistant.” Rick announced proudly as he wandered by with an armful of clothes. 

Kevin waited until he was out of earshot to lean into Javier’s space and whisper,

“That and he’s actually scary good at sales.” 

“Huh.” said Javier, eyeing Rick. 

The last customer in the store made a beeline for the counter, and Javier stepped away and tried to look interested in the girl’s jeans section. 

“Hey. I just wanted to grab this.” she said quietly, handing over a flower headband. 

Kevin mentally composed a lament for his sales average, and slipped easily into his huge customer service smile. 

“Sure thing! I’ll just pop that through for you.” 

She beamed, but as she handed her item over to him, the tail of it caught on a hand cream tube, toppling it and the rest of the line for the ninth time that day. 

“Ohmygosh! _Sorry_!!” she exclaimed. 

Kevin could hear Rick trying to stifle his guffaws from the other side of the store.


	2. Chapter 2

Kevin’s breathing still carried a slight hitch from two hours of running around a basketball court with Javier jostling him about as they settled onto a brick wall at the edge of a park with their icecreams. 

He tipped his head back to look at the orange glow of the night above him. 

There were no stars bright enough to pierce the smog, but the sound of cars and the mismatched colours that bled out of the billboards and streetlamps around them gave Kevin a heady feeling that reminded him of lying under the Milky Way on a visit to his cousin in Australia. 

“See - hokey pokey. Totally a real flavour.” he said, digging his elbow into Javier’s side as he bit into his icecream. 

“That aint right, bro.” Javier replied, wrinkling up his nose. 

“You got green tea and coconut. What are you, like, eighty?” 

“Nah, sophisticated. And did you just _bite_ your icecream?”

Kevin grinned at him, aware that he had a particularly spectacular icecream moustache. Javier just shook his head and shoved him playfully.

“It’s like I don’t even know you.” 

Kevin leant into the contact a little, but he was too winded from running around earlier in the evening to retaliate. 

“Have you ever seen the whole sky full of stars?” he asked instead, tilting himself backward again. 

“Yeah.” Javier replied, so still beside him that Kevin was sure he’d almost stopped breathing. “Saw all sorts in the service.”

Kevin blinked. 

“I didn’t know you were in the army.” 

“Got out about a year ago.”

They were so close together that Kevin could feel Javier shrug and shuffle in towards him. He closed the last of the distance with a slight lean, until Javier was a stripe of warmth up his side. 

“Army to Nike is kind of a big change?” 

Kevin didn’t mean for it to sound like a question, but his curiosity leaked out when he was distracted by Javier’s cologne. 

“Dunno. I wanna be cop.” Javier said, setting his shoulders so that they were squished together even more. 

“So, go be a cop.” Kevin said with a shrug. 

Javier’s entire body went taunt beside him.

“An honourable discharge would be a big help with that.” 

Javier’s tone had a bite of anger to it. He jumped down off the wall moments after he’d spoken and began to march off towards the street before Kevin had a chance to ask. 

Which of the hundreds of questions blaring in his mind he would’ve chosen, he didn’t know. 

“Ever had takoyaki?” Javier was calling out to him. 

Kevin hopped down off the wall and scrambled to catch up. Carefully pushing his every impulse down, he asked a different question entirely. 

“What’s takoyaki?” 

“Octopus balls.” Javier said simply, shoving his hands in his pockets and slowing his pace so that Kevin could reach him. 

As Kevin jostled into him to demand an explanation about these ‘octopus balls’, he felt an ache in his side where Javier had been leaning against him moments before. Javier’s confession had left his voice brittle and toneless. Kevin wasn’t sure if he hurt for Javier, or the loss of warmth beside him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not really sure if hokey pokey is an international flavour or not, but it exists in America in this fic at least! It's vanilla with little caramel spots in it. 
> 
> I promise stuff gets more cheerful! They'll even get together eventually.


End file.
